New Delhi: Artfully chronicling three decades of the country's tumultuous political past, renowned cartoonist Sudhir Tailang's solo exhibition “Here and Now (Rajiv to Modi),” offers a unique look into the events that shaped the destiny of a nation, a glimpse unsparing in purview and biting in satire.
“All I wanted to do when I was younger was to be a gate keeper at cinema theatres. But now I have ended up as a cartoonist,” said the renowned cartoonist during the inauguration of his exhibition here recently.
“You are not a politician of any consequence if you are not in cartoons. It's a measurement of your stature in politics.
When a politician stops appearing in cartoons, that's the beginning of the end of his political career,” he added.
Tailang, who in the recent past suffered from brain tumour has made a remarkable comeback from the surgery to the art gallery. “You can remove a tumour from my brain, but not the humour,” he quipped.
From Rajiv Gandhi to Narendra Modi, the exhibition traces the fortunes of the Prime Ministers of the country in the backdrop of important happenings.
Caricatures of political figures like I K Gujral and Manmohan Singh, start off as sidekicks but slowly evolve into main subjects of the sketches.
Personalities cutting accross the political spectrum including senior BJP veteran L K Advani, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit, Left leader Sitaram Yechury and Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal, all of whom and who had one time or the other been the subject of Tailang's scathing eye turned up at the inauguration of his show.
